Guardians of Avernus
The Guardians are powerful creatures, species and civilizations that that are constantly active in the defence of Avernus. While they generally lack the raw power of the weapons their greater numbers, intelligence and wider purpose makes them every bit as important if not more so. Contacted Guardians Sphinxes The Sphinx are Warp Entities with the head of a woman and the body of some sort of big cat. The size of Sphinix's seems to vary enormously, with the smallest being the size of a Phase-Tiger and the largest being bigger then a Baneblade. These Warp entities are capable of locking any door and ensuring that non can move around the lock. They are often tasked to keep active Warp Rifts and tears in space-time closed until the rift can be closed, however long that takes. In battle Sphinxes are equally deadly, locking away aspects of their opponents powers in order to defeat them. The main use of a Sphinxes power is to lock something away, and very broad uses of this power are common. These can range from locking away simple concepts like a beings connection to the Warp or ability to move to more exotic concepts such as particular skills, or even the ability to communicate. Sphinxes seem to spend massive amounts of time locking down Warp Rifts and are open to entertainment, which is what they view conversations with others as. They love riddles and other mental challenges and often make a game out of answering questions, being willing to trade answer for answer and using riddles. Border Lions The Border Lions are a species that resembles giant felines, with their size varying greatly due to their powers but reaching the size of a Baneblade at the largest, and a Phase-Tiger at the smallest. Most of what you know the the Border Lions is what Vlad Tepes Border Lion friend He-Who-Walks-Obliquely is willing to tell you, and what you can infer from him. They are tasked with guarding the border of the Materium and Immaterium from daemons slipping though and are Avernus' agents in the outside galaxy. The Border Lion's are able to travel interstellar distances though the Warp, bypass every known form of Warding without detection and are incredibly stealthy. They also seem to be able to use biomantic powers to change their size to an extent, and to boost their already formidable physical capacities. Huanglong Known to humanity only due to stories and the eyes of Grandmaster Ridcully. The Huanglong are The Shepherds of the World. According to the Huanglong they were a member of the wider Draco genus that all known Avernite Dragons belong to. Where the majority of the genus are intelligent, but ultimately animalistic, the Huanglong and the Therondy Dragons both became peoples, albeit with very different focuses. The complete mythology would take far too long to go through in detail, but the broad strokes was a royal amongst the Huanglong was almost slain, but was saved by a much weaker people. In gratitude the royal taught the people many things in gratitude. Instead of returning to his people the Royal traveled the World, teaching and developing a philosophy as they went until at last they had come back to where they began. Finding the People they had taught flourishing he brought his philosophy and the tales of adventure and teaching to their people, encouraging them to go out into the world and do the same. Whether or not this story is literal, allegorical, or has become distorted with time is up for debate. Whatever the truth of the matter is, the Huanglong did develop into a civilisation with the traits the world was searching. Apparently when the World is in need of a Guardian it will first search the Peoples for any that fit its criteria before creating one, and the Huanglong fit perfectly. The role of troubleshooter and guides, hidden agents aiding and shepherding its peoples, ensuring that threats are dealt with before greater force needs to be presented, and creating new heroes to fight back the darkness. As part of this, the World turned the Huanglong into beings of the immaterium to better facilitate their duties, allowing them to travel where they needed to quickly and enhancing their already puissant might. Since then they have acted as stewards and guardians to the potential of Avernus, as well as the Planet’s internal eyes and ears, while their brethren the Border Lions look outwards. This neatly explains why they were at the tournament, scouting for issues and looking for talent. Their representative, who identified himself as Yushe, explains that they’ve been cautious about how to approach the problem of humanity. On the one hand they explain that there is much potential there for them to foster, but the tales from Vlad and He-Who-Walks-Obliquely about modern-day humanity have made them take a slower approach. In terms of powers, Yushe was quite happy to avoid revealing anything beyond what was already determined by the High Grandmaster, a degree of shockingly potent shapeshifting. However, he also discovered that the Huanglong likely possess psychic strength rivalling if not surpassing their brethren in the Therondy Dragons, making even one of them a dangerous foe. Uncontacted Guardians Penguins The Pengiuns are several species of small flightless aquatic birds ranging in size from half a meter tall to almost one and a half meters. Their duty it is to watch over the polar gates and act as the first line of defence against all threats that comes from within them. They are organised into half a dozen empires, each ruled over by a hereditary royal family that produces the most powerful psykers among their species. Penguins are capable of using all forms of Psychic powers but excel at Demonology. Probably the Penguins greatest skill however is their ability to form massive highly effective Choirs, with entire nations of millions of Penguins able to form a single choir. There are several distinct castes of Penguins each of which has its own place on the assignment, ranging from the basic Penguins who are Epsilon-level, through Gamma-level Royal Penguins all the way to Alpha-level Emperor Penguins. From what you can gather from talking to the peoples of Avernus the Penguins are considered to be one of the worlds super-powers, and it is believed that as a race they could stand up to even most of the Great Ones and triumph. Category:Avernus Natives Category:Infomational